Worldviews, Part 6

Now we are at the point in this string of posts where I start evaluating various world religions to see which of them (if any) match my intuitive conception of God, drawn from observations of the natural order of things. Which religions, then, posit a creator Deity (or deities) who is/are:

• Personal (self-aware, choosing, valuing)
• Volitional, Emotional, Rational, Spiritual 
• Relational (and probably benevolent?)
• Orderly, reliable, internally consistent
• Lover of beauty
• Source of vitality

There are a lot of ways to go about this, I suppose.  But I'll take the approach that Matt Willis does on ESPN when he analyzes golf or NASCAR events.  He calls it "The Eliminator", and knocks out one contender after another until he picks a winner.

We've already eliminated Materialism (no God) and its variations, Pantheism (God as impersonal force) and its variations, and we should probably eliminate the traditional Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Babylonian and Norse pantheons as well, since they do not seem to satisfy the criteria of being orderly, reliable and consistent.  Rather, those gods are notoriously warring, petulant, and capricious.  The animistic, aboriginal religions that posit "regional" or "topical" gods, with limited scope of influence, responsibility or expertise, hardly seem to qualify either, since a creator-God is specified. 

So, only those religions that claim to have a God (or Gods) that is (are) personal, universal, and consistent, need be explored.  This leaves us with Monotheistic religions (at least the ones that worship a personal creator-God; some don't), and some Polytheistic ones that focus on a smaller number of harmoniously inter-relating Gods. 

The short list, then, seems to be:

• Hinduism (the various Brahman sects, anyway)
• Judaism (Hasidism, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform)
• Christianity (except sects whose God is impersonal)
• Islam (Shia, Sunni)
• Deism
• Baha'i
• Miscellaneous others with relatively few adherents; it's probably safe for me to assume that if my presuppositions are shared by a lot of others (which may or may not be true!) that many people like me would be drawn to a religion that is consistent with those.  For the time being, then, I'll research the bigger religions and see which can be eliminated.

Some of these have strains (like Shia Islam vs Sunni Islam) that have different views as to whether or not God is approachable, capable of relations with humanity, and some (Deism, Ba'hai) see God as personal but unapproachable (non-relational).  We'll dig into each as we go along.

But, to expedite my drill-down, let's make one additional intuitive leap:  if God IS approachable, as well as relational, then interactions with God(s) and humans would very likely have been noteworthy experiences, so much so that they would have entered humanity's historical record in some way (whether written or oral).  Deism, Baha'i, Sunni Islam, Christian Science and the like, by their very beliefs, exclude that possibility.  I can check them off the list for the time being, and revisit them if none of the remaining religious work out.  And so we reach the taxonomy shown in Part 5. 

Which of the remaining list of religions DO make claims for such interactions between God and humans?  (keeping in mind, of course, that many religions make such claims, but may have already been eliminated by other points on my list of presuppositions).  Judaism and Christianity lay claim to historical interactions between God and human beings, although the frequency and degree of those differ greatly.  Islam does as well, at least in the case of the Prophet Mohammed.  I can't comment on Islam beyond that, and know little or nothing about the Brahman sects of Hinduism.  That will no doubt come with teaching REL 120 later this year.  :)

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At this point I will press on with what I know about Judaism and Christianity on this topic.  That's up ahead in Part 7.